


Break A Leg

by regularturtle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caduceus Clay-centric, Fluff, Gen, Hurt Caduceus Clay, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, claybies fic!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29350395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularturtle/pseuds/regularturtle
Summary: Colton looked back at Calliope, and if he had seemed scared while he was up in the tree, he looked absolutely terrified now. “Mom is gonna kill us when she gets back.”In which siblings do dumb things sometimes, and Caduceus gets peer pressured into climbing a tree.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Clay Family
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	Break A Leg

**Author's Note:**

> I’m using the most cliche title for a fic like this ever. Can’t think of anything better, and I just want to post it already. Do y’all wanna know how long this has been in my drafts??? I messaged one of my discord servers (shoutout to the Caduceus Conspiracy Club ✌️) about this idea on 2/27/20, and I’d definitely been working on it for a couple weeks before that. Well it’s finally DONE and I’m POSTING IT! (if you can think of a better title though please let me know bc this one is very boring)
> 
> (also this was nowhere near my oldest draft... some day I’ll get those ones done too...)
> 
> Oh and for reference — I imagine Caduceus is around the firbolg equivalent of 11-12, Clarabelle is maybe 7 or so, Calliope is around 13-14, and Colton is around 14-15? Listen, the youngest person in my entire family is 19 and I’m 21 so like. zero experience with children here, I don’t know how children work at all. Hopefully this isn’t completely unrealistic!

Caduceus was _very_ good at playing hide and seek. His hiding skills were only about average, truthfully, but it was almost unnerving how skilled he was at finding people. He could remember one game where he simply opened his eyes after counting to 100, turned around in a circle, and was able to spot all three of his siblings right away.

He found Clarabelle and Calliope almost immediately this time, the two of them crouched together behind one of the larger gravestones. It took him a bit longer to find Colton, perched what must have been 40 feet up the tallest tree in the Grove.

“I found you!”

Colton looked down at his siblings, arms crossed as he leaned against the trunk. “Not yet you haven’t,” he yelled. “You have to come up and get me.”

Caduceus frowned. That wasn’t how hide and seek worked. You just had to see someone for it to count.

So he called back, “That’s not how hide and seek works.”

“It is now,” Colton scoffed. “Game isn’t over until you come up and tag me!”

Caduceus pouted up at his brother. As the oldest, Colton was by far the tallest, and Caduceus was still shorter than Colton had been at his age. Looking around at the various branches, he knew he would have trouble making it as high as Colton did.

He looked behind him to Calliope, who just gave him a non-committal shrug.

“Sorry, Cad, I don’t make the rules.” _But Colton does, apparently._ “Guess you gotta go get him.”

Suddenly, a gust of wind whistled through the leaves of the Savalirwood. Colton startled, scrambling to grab onto the branch as it swayed slightly.

 _Oh._ Colton was afraid to come back down. Caduceus held back a grin, quashing down the petty sense of delight he felt at seeing the small glint of fear in his brother’s eyes, but he could also feel some of Colton’s apprehension leaking through to himself. Climbing up _would_ be the perfect opportunity to show him up... but it would also mean climbing far higher up the tree than he ever had before.

Caduceus chewed his lower lip in thought for a moment. His mother and aunt wouldn’t be back from their pilgrimage for about two more weeks, and as they had left, they had told the four children to stay safe. Specifically, they had told _Caduceus_ to make sure his siblings didn’t do anything too dangerous.

“If you don’t come up here, I win!”

And climbing up the tallest tree in the Grove to make sure Colton came down counted as keeping him safe, right?

“Okay,” he said. “I’m coming.”

So he leapt up, grabbed hold of the lowest limb, and began to pull himself up the tree.

The beginning was easy. The lower boughs were sturdy and didn’t budge as he stepped on them, but they quickly began to thin out as he climbed higher.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Caduceus said nervously, eyeing the distant branch Colton was sitting on.

“It’s the rules, Caddy!” Calliope yelled. Caduceus flinched slightly at the sudden noise, fear jolting through him as he nearly lost hold of the branch.

“Too much of a scaredy cat?” Colton snickered.

Caduceus shook his head, but his hands began to quiver as he wrapped his arms tighter around the branch. “I’m almost there!”

He was, in fact, less than halfway there.

The next branch was about six feet above his current one. For Colton, that would have been easy, but Caduceus could tell that his arms would be just barely out of reach even if he stretched as high as they could go. But the higher branch began to curve downwards after a few feet, so maybe if he moved outwards…

He began to inch away from the trunk, arms and legs wrapped completely around the branch. He froze as it creaked slightly beneath his weight, then slowly began to push himself upright.

Fifteen feet below him, Clarabelle was bouncing excitedly in place, and as they made eye contact she gave him a big smile.

“You can do it, Cad —“

The branch snapped beneath him.

Caduceus yelped, and without thinking, turned invisible as he plummeted towards the ground. A loud _crack_ rang out through the Blooming Grove.

For a few seconds, everything was still. Colton, Calliope, and Clarabelle stared in horror at the spot where their brother should have fallen.  
Then Caduceus popped back into view with a pained moan, ears pressed flat against the sides of his head as the agony in his leg pierced through the shock clouding his brain.

 _”Fuck!”_ Colton swore. He began to scramble down, his own fear suddenly forgotten. Calliope dashed over to Caduceus, dropping to the ground next to his prone form. She paled at the sight of his left leg, which was bent unnaturally from his fall.

“Go get Dad,” she shouted to Clarabelle. The younger firbolg began to run towards the cottage without a word.

“Wait,” Colton yelled, still in the tree, and Clarabelle froze in place. “Don’t tell Dad! We can... we can fix this.”

“How?” Calliope cried, her voice dripping with panic as she glared daggers up at her older brother. “How are we going to fix this?”

“I don’t know!” Colton dropped the last few feet to the ground and fell to his knees next to Calliope, his hands ghosting over his brother’s badly broken leg. He pulled back as Caduceus tried to curl in on himself with a distressed whine. “Shit, Caduceus, don’t move.” He looked back at Calliope, and if he had seemed scared while he was up in the tree, he looked absolutely terrified now. “Mom is gonna _kill_ us when she gets back.”

“She’ll be even angrier if we don’t do something,” she retorted. “Belle, go get Dad.”

Clarabelle ran off again, almost colliding with a gravestone in her panic. Another minute passed as Colton and Calliope tried to calm their brother, but their words seemed to have little effect in the end; despite the pain he was in, Caduceus was already quiet, breathing shallowly and only letting out the occasional faint whimper.

 _“What happened?”_ The two uninjured firbolgs’ heads shot up as their father ran towards them, pushing them out of the way as he knelt down. He murmured a word under his breath, causing some of Caduceus’s minor scrapes to close up, but his leg seemed unchanged. “Damn it, Constance is much better at this than I am.” He turned around to the other three children. “Don’t tell your mother I said that word.”

“Colton said _fuck_ —“ Calliope cut off as Colton punched her in the arm.

Cornelius gave them a stern glance. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” He placed a hand to his temples with a ragged sigh, then ran a hand through his younger son’s pale pink hair, which was now damp with a cold sweat. “Caduceus, honey, I’m going to need you to be brave for a moment. Can you do that for me?”

Caduceus nodded almost imperceptibly, his eyes screwed shut.

“Okay. I’m picking you up on three.” Colton and Calliope scattered backwards to stand next to Clarabelle as their father counted down. He quickly lifted his son into his arms, Caduceus letting out a strained whimper. He turned towards the other three children, although his hardened gaze was focused on Colton and Calliope in particular. “I’m going to take care of your brother, but we’re not done talking.” Then he began carefully walking towards the cottage.

The two older children stared at each other silently for a moment, Clarabelle shifting nervously from one foot to the other off to the side.

”Colton, we are _so_ fucked — Belle, don’t tell Dad I said that word.”

——

The next two weeks were probably the most boring of Caduceus’s life. His father’s healing abilities were more limited than those of his mother or aunt, forcing him to be mostly bed-bound with a splint and stiff bandages wrapped around his leg. From what his father had told him once he was coherent enough to absorb anything, he had badly hurt his knee in the fall.

Clarabelle had come in to make sure he was alright as soon as she could, nearly crying at the sight of her older brother hurt as he was, but quickly calming down as she saw he would be okay. Calliope and Colton, on the other hand, almost completely avoided him for a whole week.

The one exception was a few hours after the incident, when Cornelius led the two older siblings into the room and watched them mumble apologies to their younger brother. They could barely make eye contact with him, staring at the floor and quickly fleeing the room when their father let them go.

One week later, however, Caduceus awoke to find Calliope sitting on the bed next to him.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

“Hi.”

Calliope sat nervously, wringing her hands and staring at the wall. Then she turned and wrapped him in a tight hug.

“I’m sorry we got you hurt, Caduceus. I know we kinda already apologized, but — I want you to really know I mean it. And Colton does too, even if he’s a dumbass who won’t say it. We shouldn’t have put you in danger like that. And we shouldn’t have been ignoring you, either. I just felt so bad and didn’t know what to say.”

Caduceus didn’t say anything for a moment — he was just happy to have his sister talking to him again, after a whole week of barely seeing her.

“It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “I think it was mostly Colton’s fault, anyway.”

Calliope snorted. “Maybe. I’m still sorry, though.”

And at that moment, the door opened, and Colton appeared in the doorway. He stepped back a bit, clearly not expecting someone else to already be there.

“Oh, um —“

“Colton, you idiot, get in here!” Calliope waved him over, and Caduceus and Calliope’s hug became a more awkward group one.

“Sorry I made you climb the tree,” Colton said. It wasn’t nearly as wordy as Calliope’s apology, but from _Colton,_ it had about the same meaning.

When Cornelius walked over soon after to bring Caduceus his breakfast, he found the three of them talking and laughing like nothing had even happened. He smiled, leaving them to their chatter for a few more minutes.

 _Constance’ll be proud when she gets back,_ he thought. _And then she’ll kill me for not keeping a closer eye on them. But first she’ll be proud!_

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me about CR (or D&D in general, or video games, since those are the things I post about) @regularturtle on Tumblr!


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